Garden of Shadows

by Tinalynge

  Like the three previous guards, this man also sat down in front of the cell, but he did not instantly close his eyes; instead, he continued to observe Xue Wei.

  After contemplating, Xue Wei also sat down, placing his hands in his lap and looked back at the man on the other side of the door.

  The two looked into the eyes of one another, and mutual respect began to grow between them. It was clear that the person each of them faced was not to be underestimated.

  While the Heavenly Knight was certain that Xue Wei was a monster after what he’d been told before entering, he was shocked to see that it was, in fact, a mere youngster. His eyes were clear, bright, and filled with intelligence, and a smile hung on his lips, making him seem carefree, even when facing a Heavenly Knight.

  Xue Wei was pleasantly surprised with this man as well. He was calm, collected, and his bearing was neither hurried nor slow when moving. He’d sat down with an elegance you rarely found amongst servants, but he was clearly someone bound to the Baili family by an oath of loyalty.

  The two were quiet for a long time, before the Heavenly Knight finally opened his mouth, “I am sorry for what I am about to do,” he uttered with a deep voice, devoid of all emotions.

  “I am bound to the Baili family. Any order they give me, I am to succeed to the best of my ability, or I will lose my life,” he continued to explain.

  “I do not wish to harm you, so I suggest that you pledge your allegiance to the Baili family. Although they are rather pushy and do things in questionable ways, they are not too bad.”

  “They threatened my dear ones,” Xue Wei answered, coldly. “They have been trying to use coercion to force me into working with them. The more they do this, the more I will fight back.”

  “It seems that we will be incapable of reaching an agreement,” the Heavenly Knight resigned with a sigh, small needle-like shapes appearing in the air at the same moment.

  These needles were made purely out of spiritual energy, and they were fluctuating with a power that Xue Wei had not experienced before. His eyes turned solemn, and his smile slowly vanished.

  When he had met the guards earlier, they had been assaulting him with all their might, but the only way they could send out their energy was in waves that came crashing down upon him and were spread over his entire body.

  This Heavenly Knight was clearly in a higher position of wealth or power than the Sky Knights. He had some techniques and methods that others did not, and they were clearly able to cause some severe injury to Xue Wei, should these needle-like threads of energy hit him.

  Xue Wei was uncomfortable, but he was the one who had decided to follow the Baili family and fight them head-on rather than run and hide as he usually did.

  Since he had made this decision, then he was to stick to it till the end. Xue Wei was the kind of person who would never regret a decision he made, and he would forever be loyal to his choices.

  Since he had made this decision, he would not change course, and he would meet every hardship straight on.

  There was respect in the eyes of the Heavenly Knight, alongside a bit of pity. He too had experienced the pain of being impaled by a soul needle, and he knew that it could leave a lasting impact on one’s soul.

  Still, he had been given his orders, so there was nothing to do other than follow those orders, and thus he unleashed a torrent of soul needles that rained down upon Xue Wei.

  Xue Wei closed his eyes the moment he felt the needles approaching him, and he urged the golden dragon to leave his soul palace to face them head-on.

  A golden light shrouded Xue Wei as the dragon materialized outside of his body as it had done back in the Soul Tower. It grew in size and shrouded him from the needles, but the moment they came into contact with the golden scales on the body, the needles melted into puddles of energy that the dragon quickly absorbed.

  A loud screech reverberated through the entire dungeon. It spread through the building on top of the dungeons, and even the elders in the main building heard the screech that made the very soul of each member of the Baili family tremble in fright.

  The golden dragon spirit was not active for long; in fact, it was only a second from materializing until it vanished again, but during this second, the Heavenly Knight felt a pressure unlike anything he had ever experienced before, and he swore that he had seen a golden dragon shrouding the youngster protectively within.

  Chapter 38 - Kill Him or Keep Him?

  The moment the shining light vanished, the Heavenly Knight narrowed his eyes. Xue Wei was standing as intact as before, but the cell was a different story. Fissures had appeared all over it, and even the metal of the cell door was warped from the sheer amount of pressure that had been released earlier.

  The cells were not made to keep Qi cultivators at bay. In fact, Xue Wei was easily able to destroy the door and leave if he wished to do so, however, there was only one way to leave the dungeons, and that was through the building on top of the dungeons—the building where all the Baili family’s guards resided.

  Although Xue Wei was rather arrogant and had great faith in his own abilities, he did not think he could take on a few Heavenly Knights alongside dozens of Sky Knights. He did have the golden dragon spirit protecting him, but there was a limit to this protection.

  Even now, when he had relied on the golden dragon spirit, he had sensed that he could no longer call it out. It was so filled with energy from those soul needles that it was about to burst.

  It was currently lying in his mind palace with closed eyes and a pained expression on its face, trying to consume the overwhelming energy that it had absorbed just moments before.

  Fortunately, the Heavenly Knight knew nothing about this. He was unaware of what Xue Wei had done, about which tricks he had up his sleeve and about his real species.

  He had thought he was a mere human, but now he was starting to seriously doubt himself. Was that dragon a Primordial Beast that followed him around? But if it was a Primordial Beast, how could it have appeared out of nowhere and then completely vanished without a trace.

  Spiritual energy cultivators had the best perception of all cultivators. It was near-impossible to sneak up on a spiritual energy cultivator, and even harder to hide under their noses, yet this beast had appeared and vanished just like that.

  Since it could vanish, was this just a technique? A Qi technique that he had never heard about before? But it had obviously drawn in the energy that the soul needles consisted of. How could Qi consume spiritual energy?

  The Heavenly Knight was getting more and more perplexed and confused, but he did not have a lot of time to consider it, as the screeching roar of the dragon had alerted every guard in the entire family—not to mention the elders.

  It did not even take the time it takes to brew a cup of tea before the entire dungeon was filled with high ranking guards and elders from the Baili family. All of them were looking at Xue Wei with hesitation and doubt evident in their eyes.

  No one spoke though, all of them were just filled with uncertainty and slight apprehension. The roar had shaken the entire family compound, the sheer force from it was so powerful that it was impossible to ignore.

  Finally, the grand elder made an appearance. He gazed at Xue Wei with solemn eyes and then gestured for everyone else within the hall to leave.

  Although the roar had sounded powerful, there was no way that the roaring beast would be capable of dealing with the grand elder, so all of them proceeded to withdraw, taking a glance at Xue Wei without hiding the curiosity in their assortment of eyes.

  Once only Xue Wei and the grand elder remained in the dungeon, the grand elder finally spoke, “It seems that we have underestimated you.”

  “I am not sure if you underestimated me, or if you knew nothing about me from the start,” Xue Wei said with a shrug of his shoulders. “What did you actually realize about me? I am new to this continent, so many of my secrets are very well guarded, and it is not like I am going to spill them just because you ha
ve locked me up in a dungeon.”

  Hearing Xue Wei’s words, the grand elder’s face turned rather ugly. He too had to admit that all their attempts at coercion had been a failure so far, but he was not worried.

  Unlike Xue Wei—who was doing all in his power to make time pass by as fast as possible so that he could give the Gu and Yuan families as much time as possible to prepare—the Baili family were taking everything very slowly.

  They were unaware of what exactly Xue Wei had gifted the other families, so they did not know that they were currently planning to usurp the position of number one family in Yan Dalu, nor would they suspect the two families would be a legitimate threat anyway.

  To the Baili family, time was nothing more than a number. Xue Wei was in their clutches, and it was clear that one way or another, he would submit to them. It was inevitable—they just had to find the right method first.

  “So you are a beast?” the grand elder could not help but ask as he looked at Xue Wei. “The roar was rather magnificent; it felt as if there was an earthquake. In fact, I bet that even someone outside of the family compound will have heard it.”

  The light in the grand elder’s eyes shone with greed; he was looking at Xue Wei as if the young man was a priceless treasure. “We do not have a tendency of taming beasts here on our continent,” he continued.

  “I heard about your friend’s amazing power of enslaving Primordial Beasts. This is a rather useful ability. Of course, our Baili family has no enmity towards beasts, and see no reason to tame the Primordial ones. However, Fierce beasts are not so intelligent. To make an army of Fierce Beasts could prove to be rather useful.”

  The more the grand elder spoke, the more annoyed Xue Wei became. When he had come here, they had threatened him with his friends, and he had been close to forgetting the bigger picture and had just wanted to kill them all.

  Now once again, they were threatening to harm his friends and family, and he once more had an urge to kill them off, but he stopped himself when he remembered that he was not any match for this man.

  Since he could not hope to match his power, then why not try to use his wits?

  “The Baili family sure is noble,” Xue Wei mocked. “When I was forced to pay a visit, the young master leading the others used the same method as you are now.

  “He was not content about talking with me concerning my abilities, methods, and formulas, he wanted more, so he started threatening my dear ones.

  “I promised to come here on the condition that my friends and family were left safe and sound, that no one would threaten them or force them to do anything.

  “Yet here we are, you have realized the benefits of my friend’s abilities, and now you want to abuse this power—even force me into agreeing if I want him to be safe, is this really how the Baili family conducts themselves?

  “You first guarantee that they will be safe and unharmed, not forced into anything, but after realizing you can get more benefits, you go back on your promise?

  “Do you really think that I am a defenseless animal? That I am just going to sit here and let the Baili family walk all over me? We had an agreement; if you do not abide by it, then don’t blame me for causing havoc!”

  As Xue Wei spoke, an invisible force could be felt building in the air. Although the grand elder would never be threatened by Xue Wei, he could feel that this young man was getting increasingly difficult to control.

  Although this man would be a great addition to the Baili family, the grand elder was starting to wonder, for the first time, if it was even possible to control him.

  If he had been willing to join them, then he would have been a great strength for their family, but when he refused, there was a chance that he would end up being a negative influence on their family, if not even a threat.

  Xue Wei clearly had a lot of potential, his strength was growing rapidly, and he was still young. Even amongst the youngsters in the Baili family at his age, there was only one who could rival him in his cultivation base of spiritual energy—even when all the experts from the Baili family had had the support of the Soul Tower since they were young.

  Xue Wei only came to the continent recently; he was not a person who had grown up entering the Soul Tower, and thus his advance in spiritual energy should be slower than others, yet he was still at an unparalleled level for his age.

  Not to mention, he did not only focus on spiritual energy, but he was also a strong Qi cultivator. He was a true monster.

  A hostile gleam appeared in the grand elder’s eyes. It was clear that the elder was currently in a battle between his greed and his logic.

  Greed told him that Xue Wei had so many wonderful secrets that could assist their family. That, if Xue Wei was fully tamed and made loyal to their family, then they would be unstoppable—even for the king.

  Logic and reasoning were telling him that although he had a lot of undiscovered potential and information, this young man was simply too dangerous. He was a threat from the moment he had opposed the Baili family, and he also knew that they would lose some things for executing him, but would they really lose a lot?

  In the end, he had to decide; was it worth it to risk their family for something they had no guarantees would succeed? He was leaning more and more towards killing Xue Wei, ending the problem and ensuring that he would not end up bringing disaster upon them.

  Just as the grand elder had finally reached a decision, he reached out his arm, dense spiritual energy gathering in his palm, ready to erupt at any moment—when the sound of a horn rang through the entire compound, interrupting his train of thought and making the grand elder furrow his brows.

  The spiritual energy on his palm stayed for a moment before the horn rang again, and the grand elder withdrew his hand, glancing at Xue Wei with a worry clouding his eyes, and quickly rushed out of the dungeon.

  “Seems like they heard my roar,” Xue Wei muttered to himself when he heard the horn. He did not need to ask to know that this was the call to arms for the Baili family.

  And only one thing could make the Baili family group up like this, and that was if an attack on their family was coming. Right now, the only ones likely to attack the Baili family were the Yuan and Gu families.

  “Let the show begin,” Xue Wei grinned as he stood up and reached out his arm. The door that had been keeping him imprisoned for the last few days was wrenched off its hinges, the useless metal bars clanging on the ground. Although it was strong enough to keep a spiritual energy cultivator with a Qi level of Heavenly Warrior rank inside, Xue Wei was an Earth Knight.

  A Knight and a Warrior were in completely different categories. What could hold back a warrior was nothing against a knight.

  Being released from the cell, Xue Wei casually strolled through the dungeons, peering at the other cells, but finding that they were all empty.

  When he reached the staircase, he found that there was not a guard to be found, just like when he reached the top of the stairs—the building where all the guards should be present was completely empty. All the guards must have rushed towards the sound of the horn.

  Smiling slightly, Xue Wei walked through the Baili family compound, a luxurious place that was usually bustling with life all over, but right now, there was no one as all of them had gathered at the front gate where a cacophonous uproar could be heard.

  Chapter 39 - Family Feud

  The noise that Xue Wei could hear was the sound of screaming voices, and the air was starting to ripple from the spiritual energy that was being released at the gate.

  The accumulation of energy was getting more and more violent the closer to the gates he came, and the screams were also getting more and more urgent.

  Accompanying these screams and ripples of energy was a smell of blood and clashing of weapons.

  The sound of clashing weapons was new here in Yan Dalu, as everyone previously would focus on their spiritual energy cultivation and thus used mental attacks to end battles, but now a group of experts were rushin
g into the compound with brandished swords and staves.

  Even Primordial Beasts would rarely use weapons, as they would be using their physical shapes when fighting against their opponents. Not many would fight in their human shapes as they would be incapable of withstanding the danger posed by the spiritual energy cultivators.

  Experts who cultivated spiritual energy were cultivating faster than the Qi cultivating Primordial Beasts because of the Soul Tower, and thus the Qi cultivators had always been inferior.

  Now the opposite was happening right in front of everyone. The Qi cultivators were pressuring the rest of the experts, they were using brute strength to overpower their opponents, and none of them were showing any mercy.

  The Baili family’s guards and members were all in disarray; they had been caught off-guard, but now they had no other option than to fight back with relentless ferocity.

  Blood was flowing on the ground as more and more wounds were opened up on the two sides that were engaged in battle. As one of the Baili guards was injured, another would step forward and take over their position in the formation. The people who were coming towards the defenders were like a tidal wave, never retreating, only advancing, flooding the family’s compound with people that brutalized them with raw strength.

  Xue Wei stood not far from the family gates. He was casually leaning against a tree, and a smile flitted across his lips as he saw the blood running in rivers, and the people fighting for their lives.

  These Gu and Yuan family members were here to save him, but he was calm and collected as if it had nothing to do with him.

  In fact, this battle would have happened sooner or later, no matter whether or not Xue Wei had appeared on the continent. The Baili family were never satisfied with their lot in life. Although they were the most powerful and influential family in the entire continent, there were still some people above them.

  The King was an unshakeable person, and the officials also had the power to go against the Baili family—something that had forced them to submit for a long time.